


Choice

by romanticalgirl



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cowritten by Amy and Tracy, neither of whom are still in fandom. :(</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 3/15/01

Xander

There are a million sounds crashing down on me. It sounds like someone is still actually bowling, but when I look over I see that it’s just Buffy sending some demon’s head crashing into the pins. There’s a nice loud “thwack” as it hits and falls to pieces.  
I’m so glad I’m not clean-up guy here any longer.

I’ve been doing the undercover thing or, as I like to call it, earning rent money. Giles suspected there were a few demons making the Sunnydale’s bowling alley their home away from hell, and so I volunteered to do some snooping.

Of course that was before I knew that they ate brains, sucked bone marrow and nibbled on toes. Well, the toe nibbling hasn’t been documented, but they sound like that type of fiend. But by then, I’d been getting a steady paycheck and even a little demon drool wasn’t that much of a deterrent.

Until tonight.

Tonight, when I showed up for work, I found about five…what was left of five human bodies strewn about the lanes. Which is really bad for the wax, but no one thought to ask me about the choice in redecorating.

I’d rushed off to call Buffy, Giles and the gang, and they showed up. Magic, weapons, and really sharp wits, all ready to kick some demon ass. Only it wasn’t working out that way. It was more working out the way where we were losing. Giles was struggling to fight two of them, barely able to get enough distance for his sword to do any damage.

Buffy had decapitated one, getting a strike in the process, but there were still more that kept coming from the underground hole that was where the snack bar used to be. I had a distinct feeling that, even if they were still serving french fries, I wouldn’t be wanting any. Because these guys are ugly. Not scary like Cordelia on a bad hair day, but downright ugly.

Deep purple gashes that lacerate their bulbous green chests that were roughly as broad as a recliner. Their legs are short and squat, which makes ‘em harder to get the drop on. They’re low to the ground, better center of gravity.

I sigh and try to bring my mind back to the battle. I’m fighting one of the smaller guys, fending him off with a sword and a battle-axe. I’m holding my own, he’s not that good of a fighter and my hand-to-hand memories seem to be coming back. Maybe it’s the training I’ve been doing. Maybe it’s just the will to survive. You have to have a lot of that in Sunnydale.

I move back slightly and stumble over a loose pin that’s spun out from the lane. I fall to the ground, letting the axe drop from my hand, so that I can support the sword with both. The demon launches forward, assuming I’m down for the count. He keeps assuming it until the sword slices through the center of his chest cavity, right where Giles promised that their hearts would be.

He’s like dead weight now and I’m struggling to get him off of me, struggling to roll over and get my sword so that I can help someone else. Giles maybe, or Buffy. Or…

A scream wrenches the air and I find the strength deep inside me. I know that voice, that sound. I know it better than my own. Willow’s in trouble.

Dripping with blood and other oozy stuff I had no desire to identify, I slip and slide my way toward Willow. She’s fighting the biggest demon of all, I think. He looks like a tree. A really, really pissed off tree with sharp, serrated claws for limbs. Claws that are reaching for my Willow.

I slide to a stop, dumbfounded by the thought, even in the heat of battle. My Willow. How long has it been since I’ve thought of her that way? Since Oz? I start forward again, hefting the sword and the axe I managed to pick up again. She’s struggling against the creature and I’m almost there when another sound splits the muted silence.

Anya’s closer to me that Willow is, battling a demon the same size. Damn, how many heavy hitters do these bastards have, anyway? I realize that I have two choices. I hate choices. I hate being the one who chooses what hangs in the balance. I hate everything about this moment, except for the two women involved.

They both scream again and I know I have to choose. I can save one. I can let another die. Anya’s marginally closer. I know I can save her. I know that I can make it in time to kill the demon that’s got his hand wrapped around her throat and is about to decapitate her. I can make it to Anya and I can save her life.

So why am I running toward Willow?

The sword slices cleanly through its stump-like neck, the sickening sound of severed flesh and bone not enough to block the sound of Anya’s last scream, her death knell. The sound of the demon’s body falling lifelessly to the floor can’t take away from the gut-wrenching sob that leaves my body as I rush to catch Willow before she falls.

I gather her in my arms my best friend, my everything and try not to turn my face to the lane just a few feet, and a lifetime, away. The demon is wrestling with Buffy now, Giles quickly hurrying over to help now that all the other bad guys seem to be gone. At her feet, Buffy’s feet, lies the body…the dead body of my girlfriend. My lover.

Anya.

Willow

There are moments when even the big things don’t matter. When money doesn’t matter, when love doesn’t matter, when the world doesn’t matter. There are moments when being not dead is just enough.  
I’m having one of those moments right now.

In technicolor.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m still here. That demon had my number. I was sure I was dead. But the weird part is, I’m not. I’m kinda numb, actually. Maybe I’m in shock. With all the hours spent reading those medical texts, you’d think I’d know what was wrong with me. After taking a moment to catalogue the feelings rocketing through me, I decide I’m not really hurt. I think I’m just overwhelmed.

Slowly, feeling starts to seep back into my limbs. The cold fear in my heart that caused all the blood in my body to rush to my chest is dissipating, and sound floods back to my ears. The sound of sobbing.

For some reason I can’t fathom, Xander has his arms wrapped tightly around me, and he’s letting gut-wrenching sobs take over his entire body. And then other noises rush in. The sounds of metal clanging, fighting, and it seems really close. I press closer to Xander, hoping that we’ll be okay. I’m afraid to open my eyes and see death staring me in the face again.

“Left! Buffy, left!” Giles’ voice echoes through the bowling alley, and then there’s a sick sound of metal smacking on flesh before the even worse sound of flesh connecting with hardwood. After four years of Scooby duty, I’ve learned to distinguish many, many gross sounds. The silence after a battle is always sudden. One minute there’s bedlam, and the next minute everything’s calm.

But this time, there’s no hushed moment. I squeeze my eyes open as Buffy falls to her knees and begins choking with tears. Xander is blocking most of my view, but I can clearly see her crumple and slump to the highly waxed floorboards. Giles seems paralyzed, and he finally drops his sword, letting it clatter loudly in the quiet alley.

Xander’s whole body is shaking, and I hug him to me, trying to reassure him that it’s over, and that we’re okay. “Xander,” I whisper, finding my voice harsh and ragged. “Are you hurt?”

He lets out a quiet whimper and strokes my hair. “Willow.” There’s a myriad of emotions in his voice as he says my name. He’s said it thousands of times before, but it never sounded like a death sentence and a prayer all at once.

Now I’m worried. I try to pull back from him to look at him, but he’s having none of it. Panicking, I try to squirm away from him, but I’m unexpectedly trapped by more arms. It’s Buffy, and she’s crying and hugging us close to her.

“I’m so sorry, Xand. I’m so sorry.” Her words come out in a rush, accompanied by quiet crying. Her tear-streaked face disappears into my hair, and I’m still trying to figure out her apology when Giles appears out of nowhere, squatting down beside us and patting us all comfortingly.

And suddenly I realize someone is absent from our group hug.

Anya.

It all rushes back. The demon knocking the short sword out my hands as if it were tinfoil. The claws grazing my side, which I realize now is bleeding. The sounds of Anya’s terrified scream and more noises of the fight as the heavy hands were beginning to clamp around my throat. But then Xander came out of nowhere and then next thing I know, he’s holding me so close I can barely breathe.

I can’t breathe at all right now. My lungs are blocked and my eyes are burning with pain for him. Me or Anya. Anya or me. He had to choose. And he chose me. My own sob escapes my lips, and the irony isn’t lost on me. When I had to choose, I didn’t choose Xander.

“Xander,” I manage to choke out, “I’m sorry Xand. Oh God.”

The sound of an approaching siren splits the quiet around us, and Giles is once again there to jolt us back into reality. “The authorities are here. We have to leave, quickly.”

Without a word, Xander stands up, hoisting me into his arms and ignoring my grunt of pain as he applies pressure to the wound in my side. It’s not that deep, but it’s fresh and still tender. Buffy snaps into Slayer-mode, and begins to lead us out the back entrance, where we left Giles’ car only minutes before.

Giles and Xander help me into the backseat, and then Xander climbs in beside me. Buffy and Giles take their seats in front. Xander’s still shaking, and his lips and face are an ashen color. I move closer to him and try to hug him in the cramped space. He just lost Anya. I can’t even comprehend how he must be feeling.

Slowly, he raises his face and as our eyes meet, I’m shaken to the core of my being. I cradle him closely and sob a little as his eyes well up just from looking at me. In one instant, our whole relationship dynamic has changed. Now, I don’t know if he’s happy he saved me, or if I’m going to be a constant reminder of what he gave up for me.

Tears of frustration join tears of sorrow on my lashes. I’m not sure what’s going to happen from here. But there’s one thing I want to make clear to him. “Xand,” I say quietly, making sure he’s looking at me before I continue, “Thank you. I’m so, so, so sorry you had to make that kind of a choice. But thank you.”

His face crumples as he gathers me into his arms, and his words are almost lost to me. “Never really a choice, Will.”

Xander

And there never really *was* a choice. I wasn't lying when I said that. How could there be, between the two of them? Maybe I was lying to myself when before I took action; in that split second when I wondered what I should do. But I knew all along what that was going to be. I knew all along who was more important to me.  
I can barely feel Willow in my arms right now, though.

Everything is rushing past the car on the way back to Giles', but it seems so slow.

Slow-motion.

The noises I hear, the breaths that I take, everything whirring below the window of the car. Time has almost stopped. I can feel tears on my cheeks, and try to tell myself that they're not real, but they are. My breath is rattling in my own ear, broken and painful in my chest, but that's not real either.

Virtual reality.

And I know that Willow is in my arms-- I can't seem to let her go—but she doesn't seem real to me anymore than anything else. She's a vision, a hallucination; any second I'm going to wake up and realize that she's not really in my arms, that it was her that I left in that bowling alley, broken and bloody and mutilated, less than herself. Any minute, I'm going to wake up and realize that every single one of my worst nightmares has come true, and I'm without the person that I love most in the world.

Giles pulled to a stop, and suddenly, everything seemed to be working at the normal speed again. No, Xander, this isn't a dream. You can feel Willow in your arms. You can touch her and smell her and even your breath is beginning to slow down. She's real. She's real. She's real.

I'm trying not to think about Anya.

I won't ever be able to sleep again if I think about her right now. I lift Willow for the second time that night, and carry her into Giles' apartment, laying her down on the couch. Her shirt is torn, and her wound is red and puffy looking, and bleeding slightly, but I can tell that it isn't too deep. I start to get up to go get the bandages from the veritable drug store of Giles’ medicine cabinet, but Willow catches my arm and pulls me back down, close to her. I lower myself to my knees and lean forward; numbly watching the tears shimmer in her eyes and then fall.

She reaches up and touches the tears that are on *my* cheeks--It's sort of funny, I sort of forgot that I was crying-- and I see her lip tremble in that way that she has.

"Really, Xander," she starts to whisper, pulling her fingertips away from my skin.

As soon as her touch is gone, though, something else, something unidentifiable, breaks inside of me, and I pull away, standing again. “I know, Will." My voice sounds rough and choked. Is that really me speaking? "I know. ...I have to go get you some..."

I can't even finish the sentence before I start for the bathroom. I see myself in the mirror and hardly recognize myself for a minute. My eyes look darker than before. There is a cut above my eyebrow, but I can't stop staring at my eyes. I didn't even know that I was capable of making that sort of expression.

I slam the door behind me, but only hear a soft click, even though I see the walls vibrate. Everything is slow again, and very, very quiet. Too quiet. As quiet as...

Death.

Anya.

Oh, my God.

I sit down on the edge of the bathtub, covering my eyes with my hands so that I won't have to see myself anymore. But I know, inside, that I will carry the image of my eyes at this moment with me forever. I know that this night will never leave me. I know that nothing I do will ever make up for what I had just done. I know that nothing would ever make it better. I know...

Buffy walks in the door, her eyes shaded with concern and sorrow. Buffy has lost people that she loved before, so I know she’ll identify, but...

Not really. I know that...

"I killed her," I mumble, and don't even realize the words coming out of my mouth until they were spoken.

Buffy tilts her head, her eyebrows drawn. "You saved her."

"Anya," I clarify, my voice sticking on her name, the vision of her lying dead in the middle of the bowling alley flashing behind my eyes. "I killed her."

Buffy makes a small whimpering sound, and kneels at my feet, putting her hands on my knees. "No, Xander. No, you didn't."

Why is she even arguing? Does she think she can take back what I know to be true? Does she think that saying it *wasn't* true was going to make it so? "Yes, I did."

There is a long silence, and she gives a slow, sad sigh. After I don't know how long, she finally speaks again, her hands slipping from my knees to hold my hands tightly. "Xander, do you really think that I killed Ms. Calendar?"

I look up in confusion. "What?"

"Do you really think that I was the one that killed Jenny?" she asks again, urgently. Something in her eyes tells me to answer, something that was begging me to put away all of my resentment over the past and pain in the present and be honest with her for once.

"No," I say slowly, still confused as to why she was asking-- why I was bothering to answer-- at all. "Angelus did. It was never you, Buffy."

I can barely hear my voice.

But Buffy does.

Her mouth curves up, and I am a little startled at how someone can smile and look like they are in so much pain at the same time. Is that how I looked?

"Thank you," she says softly. She pauses again, then sucks in her breath. "You mean because I didn't-- couldn't-- prevent it from happening doesn't mean I killed her... So how can you think that because *you* couldn't prevent Anya's death, that you killed her? How? Because you chose? Everyone has to, Xander. Everyone makes their choices. I did. I made mine and people died because of it. But... It was a choice I had to make. And it doesn't make me a murderer. It took me a long time to see that, but I finally do. You will too."

I drop her hands and stand, walking to the medicine cabinet. "People make different choices, and those choices have different consequences. What makes one man poor, doesn't make another. What makes one girl a savior, can make one man a murderer."

I take out the gauze and cream, tossing it to her. "Give these to Willow. I need to be alone."

Buffy shakes her head slowly, like she wants to have not heard what I had just said, and then leaves the bathroom. Well, I didn't want to hear what I had just said, either. I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want any of tonight to have happened.

But it did.

And there is no going back.

Willow

The look on Buffy’s face when she walks out of the bathroom is almost more than I can stand. He’s in there blaming himself, and I know there’s nothing I can do. I’m just a reminder now of what he’s lost. My greatest fear realized.  
I want to wish I were the one in Anya’s place, but I can’t. Does that make me a bad person? I imagine it would in Anya’s eyes. I wonder if it does in Xander’s.

“I…I think I want to go home.” I stand up, not wanting to see the pain in anyone’s eyes anymore. “I’m going to go home.”

“Not by yourself, Wills.” Buffy shakes her head adamantly. “You can’t walk to the dorms by yourself.”

“Giles?” I hate to ask, because I know there’s a lot of stuff still to do, I know that he’s hurt as well, and I know that I’m putting him right in the middle of things. But I also know he can’t refuse me much of anything. “I hate to ask, but I…I think I need to be alone?”

He nods and grabs his keys, not saying anything. Maybe it’s all there in my eyes. The fact that I can’t face Xander right now, I can’t see the pain. I can’t.

We walk out to the car in silence and it’s not until we’re almost at the dorms that he finally says something. “I can imagine how you’re feeling right now.”

“Can you?”

“I’ve often had to face this same type of decision. When Jenny…when Jenny was alive, I was thrust into the position of choosing my Slayer or the woman I…I loved. In the end, the choice was taken from me. But I still would have had to choose Buffy. Every time.”

“Xander shouldn’t have ever had to choose.” I don’t recognize my voice, and I wonder if I ever will again. How come, of all the tragedies we’ve faced, this one had to be the one that changed me? I’ve been close to death before. I’ve been held by death, when Angelus first came knocking. Why did it have to be this? Why couldn’t it be something so much more mundane that forced the issue of our feelings into the light?

Or the darkness, as the case may be.

“No one should have to choose, Willow. But inevitably, everyone does.”

“I did. And I made the wrong choice.”

“No.” Giles shakes his head as he pulls to a stop. “You didn’t. You will always love Oz. And he was what and who you needed at the time. In retrospect, it’s easy to say you made the wrong choice or you should have done things differently, but you did what you needed to at the time.”

“If I hadn’t chosen Oz, Xander never would have been with Anya and things would have been different tonight. Things would have been easier.”

“If you hadn’t chosen Oz, perhaps tonight it would have been you deciding who to save.”

I shut my mouth with an audible snap at his words and look at him horrified. “I…I…”

“Xander did what he had to do. And he’ll come to realize that as soon as he’s had time to process tonight’s events. He’s in shock right now, Willow. And he’ll have to mourn. But you’ll need to not be blaming yourself when he comes to you. He’s going to have enough guilt. Don’t make him think you’re sorry he made the choice he did.”

“But…”

“Xander loves you, Willow. Perhaps it hasn’t been obvious to you for a while now, but I’ve always seen it. He hasn’t been ready for it and he needed to grow. Sometimes it takes something this…drastic to make it all come to a head.”

“A head?” My heart wrenches as I think about Xander’s face in the car. “This isn’t something coming to a head, Giles! This was Anya’s life!”

“A life she gave willingly.” He snaps the words and I flinch away from them. “Every night we fight. We could die. Do you not think that I worry every time you children go into battle that this will be the outcome? My dreams…nightmares are filled with you…any of you…” His voice falters, filled with tears. “She’d lived over a thousand years. And while that doesn’t make what happened tonight any less tragic, I…”

I put my hand on his arm and squeeze lightly. “Giles. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He closes his eyes and is quiet for a moment. “I shouldn’t have…”

“I’m glad you did.” I open the door and slide out slowly. “Maybe you should talk to Xander. Just leave out the part about the fact that she was over a thousand years older than him. He’s a little age sensitive.”

“I would think he’d be quite happy having…made it with an older woman.”

“He’s not sleeping with his English teacher here, Giles.” I grin a little, then remember the severity of the situation. “Make sure…make sure he’s okay, all right? I don’t think he should be alone tonight.”

“I think you should be with him, Willow.”

“No. I think he needs to come to grips with this before we see each other again. I don’t want to be the thing that reminds him of what he lost.” He doesn’t say anything for a long time and I get back into the car, shutting the door behind me. “What is it?”

“It’s quite possible that he will feel that way. You are aware of that?”

“I know.” I sigh sadly. “I wish it had been me, Giles.”

“Don’t ever say that.”

“Not that…not that died.” I bow my head, the weight of what I feel on my shoulders. I open the door and slide out of the car one more time, knowing that this time, I do need to leave, I need to cry. “That had to make the choice.”

“How would you have chosen, Willow?”

I knew the question was coming, but I still didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know. But if I had been the one to choose, I could have saved Xander all this pain.”

“Remember that sentence, Willow, should you ever doubt that you love him.” He waits until I shut the door and hurry toward the dorms before he drives off, but I barely notice.

Do I love Xander? Yes. Always.

Does he love me? Yes.

Will it be enough?

That’s the question I need the answer to. And that’s the answer I don’t have.

Xander

The interesting thing about shock is how unaffected you are by stuff. There's an enormous noise all around me, and I'm pondering other things.  
Buffy's been pounding on the door of the bathroom I've locked myself in for a couple of minutes now. What I can't figure out is, why she's bothering to knock when she could just bust the thing down. Is it because she's being courteous of me -- letting me be alone? Is it because she can't be bothered to replace Giles' bathroom door in a week?

The pounding stops abruptly and I strain my ears to hear if she's taking a run at the thing. Then I hear Giles' voice. So very often the voice of reason. They're talking in low tones, so I can't make out the words, but just hearing their voices calms me a little.

And then it hits me.

I'm hyperventilating. When did that start?

"Xander?" Giles calls through the door. "Could you open the door for a moment please?"

I automatically reach out and turn the lock, allowing them access.

"Did you try asking?" Giles inquires of Buffy, arching an eyebrow as he steps past her into the small room.

Giles sits beside me on the edge of the tub and gently pushes my head until it's resting between my knees. "Just breathe, Xander," he encourages. "Slow, deep breaths."

Okie dokie Giles. As soon as I remember *how* to do that, I'll be on board with that plan. Instead, I say nothing, closing my eyes and trying to inhale through my nose instead of my mouth. Buffy begins rubbing my back in a comforting pattern, and I glance around, looking for Willow.

Buffy reads my mind. "She went home, Xander."

"What?" The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. "Why?"

Buffy shrugs. "She figured you needed some time alone."

Alone. That's exactly what I am now. Not one half of a couple. Not Anya's boyfriend. Not the guy who loves her. I'm the guy who saw his whole life change in one, single second.

Hot tears burn behind my eyes. All I can see, is that instant when I chose to let Anya die. I may not have killed her myself, but I made the choice that she would die.

It's just now hitting me that Anya's not going to come over tonight, or call me and grill me about where I've been all day. She's not going to kiss me again, not going to sigh softly after we've made love for hours, not going to be there for me. The is the first instant when Willow hasn't been here to make me glad for what I did, and I think this might kill me.

When Willow and Tara broke up a couple of months ago, I thought about breaking things off with Anya to see what Willow and I could be to each other. For a few weeks I wished that Anya didn't exist, that she wasn't the complication between us. God, I wish I could take all those thoughts back.

"Xander," Giles begins softly. "We need to discuss what you're going to say to the authorities, should they come to speak to you."

The police. They're going to want to know why she was found at the bowling alley I work at. My throat works as the tears escape my eyes. If they asked me if I killed her, won't they be able to read the truth in my eyes? That I did something worse? That I didn't save her when I could have? But then Willow would be...

With a small sob, I throw my arms around Buffy and she squeezes me tight. "Make it all not happen?" I whisper.

She shakes her head slowly, her own eyes shimmering with tears. "I can't, Xand. I'm sorry. I know it seems really bad right now, but it will get better--"

"NO!" Giles interrupts her, reaching over and hugging me as well. "It's not going to get better. It never gets better. It's never right again." I stare at his eyes behind his glasses, haunted by a different memory. "It's never better, but you'll learn to live with it." He pauses, swiping his eyes behind his glasses quickly. "You did a wonderful thing, Xander. You saved the life of someone you love. Although it may feel like a failure now, you'll come to realize that it is really an amazing accomplishment."

I let his words sink in, trying to find the truth in them to cling to. Instead, I find myself clinging to my friends.

Willow

Sleep evades me. I'm exhausted, but every time I close my eyes, Anya's face pops into my mind and I want to cry. But I can't do that, either. I'm empty of tears and almost numb. I can't wait for that moment when I can feel nothing, when I'll finally be able to sleep because I'm so worn that my feelings will shrink into themselves.  
And it scares me that I don't know what to say to Xander. I hope that he forgives me, and know that he shouldn't. Buffy said that I shouldn't feel like it's my fault, but how could it not be?

At the same time... At the same time, I realize now that I'm the most important person in Xander's life, and that makes me feel... I can't even admit to how it makes me feel in the aftermath of her death. What, Anya was killed so that I could realize how deeply Xander and I feel about each other? How shallow am I to be thinking these thoughts? How uncaring, how cold? I don't want to be a cold person. I have nothing to rejoice about now. And I feel responsible for her death.

I hate that I hated her so much. Well, I guess I didn't, not really, but I never gave her the chance that she deserved. Just because she tried to kill us all and then got to be with the man I spent my entire life being in love with... Just because of that, I turned mean. I was unforgiving. I was heartless when it came to her, and impatient, and all of the things that I said I never would be when I was picked on for the first time.

Xander was... Is still in love with her.

What does this mean?

The phone rings and I yawn, glancing at the clock. It's almost six in the morning. I pick it up quickly, wondering who it could be. Hoping against hope that it's Xander, and praying that it's not.

It's Buffy.

"Hi," she says quietly, sounding a little breathless. "I'm coming home in a few minutes. I just wanted to check on you. You sound really tired. Haven't you gotten any sleep?"

"No. I guess I'm a little tired, but I'm fine." My voice sounds dull even to my own ears, and I shiver to myself. "I'll see you in a little while."

I start to hang up, but Buffy stops me. "Uh, Will?"

"Yeah?"

"....Nevermind. I'll talk to you when I get home."

"Okay. Bye, Buffy." I hang up before she gets the chance to reply, and roll over to stare at the wall a little more.

My eyes flicker to my desk, where my pictures stand, and I try to pull my gaze away, but find that I can't. I'm glued to the picture of Xander and Jesse and I, at the beginning of our freshman year of high school, linking arms in my parents’ living room. He had this goofy smile on his face, like he was proud to finally be growing up. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember all my days with him.

I remember that he looked so happy that day, joking about how he was finally going to be scoring with some older women-- As if both of us didn't know that he hadn't scored with a woman, period. I remember Jesse pretending to hit on me, telling Xander that I was a knockout, and remember how Xander pretended to get jealous and pushed Jesse's arms from around me. I always wondered if he was really pretending.

I wouldn't know. As much of my time as I spent pretending, I never got used to seeing it in other people.

And so much of my life was pretend. Pretend that you don't love Xander. Pretend that it doesn't hurt you when he talks to you like you're a boy. Pretend that you're going to be what he wants someday. Pretend that you two will live happily ever after. Lie to yourself about not wanting him, even when you're in love with someone else.

Forget him when you're in love with someone who leaves. Forget that you're still in love with him when the girl that you care about leaves. Forget that you ever planned a future with his last name. Try not to hope that he will break up with the girl that he loves, and that the timing will finally be right.

I sigh and roll over, hearing the door open. I snap my eyes shut, not wanting to sleep, but not wanting to ask Buffy the questions that are racing through my head; not wanting to hear her answers.

I hear a rustling as Buffy takes off her coat and puts it away, and then feel her standing over me. I can almost read her silence. 'Do I wake her up or let her sleep? Do I get to tell her what I think she'll want to know, or should I leave the whole thing alone?'

Finally she leaves my side, and I know she's not going to try to wake me up. I listen to her walk over to her bed and settle in under the covers. My voice surprises me in the stillness.

"Is Xander going to be okay?"

She exhales heavily, and when she speaks, there are tears in her voice. "No. Not for a long time. But... What he did last night... He loves you, Willow. I think you've always known it. I think that's part of the reason why you've loved him too. And now he's alone. And not handling it very well."

"I saw him, Buffy," I whisper, and my breath catches in my throat. "I saw him and he looked so... Lost. So hurt. I hate that I'm the one who hurt him like that."

"You're not," she says softly. "He's just going to have to hurt for a while. Maybe part of him will always hurt for her. But the whole thing is about choices, Willow. I told Xander that too. It's about choices, and we all have to make them. He made his tonight. You were it."

She falls silent, and so do I, letting the lingering questions in my mind drift away. My eyes flutter open, and I can see that the room is taking on a light-blue glow. Predawn coloring.

I want to shut my eyes and forget that this night ever happened. I want to be oblivious for the first time since... Since I was a sophomore in high school. I want to take it all back, take back everything I felt and said and thought, everything that was opposite from the person I'd like to be. The numbness, if I ever had any, is wearing off.

I want to sleep.

But I know I won't.

Xander

I wake up screaming.  
I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t remember much of anything. Except my nightmare. I used to have nightmares about clowns and vampires and my dad beating the shit out of me.

Now I have nightmares about me killing Anya in cold blood.

Yay?

Giles is at my side immediately, his arm around me. I let him pull me into his embrace and breathe heavily against his shoulder. He’s saying soothing words, telling me he knows how I feel, he understands. He actually does, in some way, but it’s not the same. He chose in theory, then Angelus proved his theory right. I chose in actuality.

I looked at Willow. I looked at Anya. And I chose.

I pull away from him and stand up, tossing the afghan off of me as I do. Giles’ green eyes are sympathetic and ache to help. I think that’s the thing that hurts him the most sometimes, is that we don’t come to him for help with the big life stuff. If it isn’t saving the world, we don’t listen to Giles.

I wonder, if I’d had the chance to ask him, what he would have said. “Did I do the right thing?”

I don’t recognize my voice and I’m not sure Giles does either. Xander Harris doesn’t sound like this. He sounds cocky and brash, unthinking and goofy. Sometimes, when he’s threatened, he sounds angry and hurtful.

He never sounds this small and lost.

“There was no right choice, Xander. There was simply a choice.”

“I keep thinking that I should have found a way to save them both. And then I could have had both of them clinging to me, holding me, kissing me, thanking me for being such a big hero. Instead, now I just have Willow. And every time I look at her right now, all I see is that she’s not Anya.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath behind me and I spin around.

Willow. Oh God, Willow.

Tears are in her eyes, falling down her cheeks, dropping to the floor. She looks like she hasn’t slept all night, she looks haunted and hunted and now, because of my careless words, she looks like she wishes she were dead.

Because she thinks I do.

“Willow, I…”

She turns around before I have a chance to say anything more and runs out of Giles’ apartment. I sink to the floor, resting my head on the ground. I can sense Giles’ hesitation. Who do you go after? Who is hurting more? Who do you comfort when there’s no comfort to be found?

“Xander?”

My head lifts from where I’ve been hitting it on the smooth, cool wood of Giles’ floor. Hmmm. Wonder when I started that? “Go,” I manage to croak out, knowing that maybe Willow needs someone more than I do right now. Or is it that I know that there’s no one who can help me?

He disappears out the front door, and I wonder if he’ll find her. Willow’s good at hiding when she doesn’t want to be found. I could find her. I should find her. I should go to her and let her know that I love her and I don’t blame her.

I blame myself.

But after everything that’s gone on between us since that fateful day when she saw me kissing Cordelia? I don’t know that I have the words to tell Willow the truth or even what she wants to hear. Because all that I can feel inside me is guilt and recrimination. All I can feel is that I ruin everything I touch eventually.

I think about Jesse, dying pretty much by my hand…or my stake, anyway. I think about Ampata, dying because I couldn’t let her hurt my friends anymore. I think about Cordelia with that iron bar through her stomach, impaled because of my reckless actions.

I think about Anya’s body, twisted and broken. I think about her being dead. She’d lived for thousands of years as a demon and yet, a few years with Xander Harris and she’s a goner.

And I wonder why I always had so much trouble getting dates.

I hear an odd sound and start to pay attention to more than just the thoughts clamoring around in my head. It’s a horrible sound, painful and wretched, like something out of Giles’ history of torture. And then I realize it’s me. I’m crying and I’m laughing and I’m dying inside.

Because if I kill everything I love, I didn’t save Willow. I just postponed the inevitable.

Willow

Technically, I’m not supposed to be able to run this fast. I’m pretty sure only a Slayer is supposed to achieve the speed I’ve hit. The world is rushing past me in a blur, and I still can’t run fast enough. I can’t get away nearly as quickly as I want. I can hear footsteps behind me, pounding in a rhythm similar to my own, but I don’t turn to look. It might be Xander. Or Giles. Coming to tell me that I’ve misunderstood. That Xander doesn’t wish he’d made a different choice last night. Too late. I was there, guys. I *heard* him say it.  
My worst nightmare has crashed over me with the speed of a thunderclap. Xander is reconsidering his choice. God, the pain in my heart has flared to life again, and it’s threatening to burn me from the inside out. I was coming to thank Xander. To offer to help him. To let him know that he wasn’t alone … no matter how alone he feels right now.

Buffy’s words earlier made me stop and reevaluate everything about my relationship with Xander over the years. I’ve known that I love him forever, it seems. It wasn’t always in the forefront of my life, but the love has always been there. Reaching out to comfort me in the darkest hours of night, making me believe that someday, things would work out for us.

But he came to the realization later than I did. At Homecoming in senior year was the first time he acknowledged that I could be anything other than a friend. And even then, we’d managed to muck it up. No worse than it is now, mind you.

I should be dead.

By all rights, I should be the one who was broken and killed in a bowling alley, left behind by the people who cared about her for the authorities to clean up. But I’m not. And I’m not going to be her, ever. So there’s no way out of this mess.

Last night, in the dark of Giles’ car, I thought I saw *something* in Xander’s eyes. Something that said that he loves me, and when the choice was handed to him, I was the one he wanted in his life. But in the morning light, it’s obvious he sees things differently. I’m not her. Does he wish it was different now? Does he wish that he’d saved her and gone on to become the love of her life? Did he wake up last night and realize that saving me was a mistake? God, I’m not her. I’m not Anya, I’m not Willow. I’m only the mistake. I’m not who he wants after all. I’m not the girl he should have saved. I’m nothing. I can’t be anything with this hanging over my head.

Tears are streaming out of my eyes and into my hair as I sprint along the sidewalk. Without even knowing how I manage, I run faster. I can’t run fast enough. I can’t…

The wound in my side feels like it’s on fire, and I sob a little and stumble, falling to my knees in the middle of a street. A busy street. And I stare dumbly as I finally see the truck that’s rushing toward me. I feel a detached interest. If I die, everything will be right, won’t it?

Suddenly, I’m scooped up with strong arms, and shades of Riley wash over me as I remember this happened once before, when Oz left.

The truck rushes by, horn blaring, as I fall in an ungainly heap, tangled up with the limbs of the person who just saved my life.

And I snap. I pound furiously on my rescuer, sobs and tears and frustration flowing out in the form of my fists balling up and lashing out at whoever pulled me to safety.

“WILLOW!!!!”

Giles’ voice stops me cold. I look up into his face, my assault slowing and then stopping. Giles was the one who snatched me from the road.

He grabs both my arms and shakes me violently, angry with me. “Don’t you dare do that again! Do you hear me? Do you want Xander to lose you too? Do you want--” his voice breaks a little, and I see tears begin to make tracks down his cheeks. “—Do you want his sacrifice to be for nothing? Don’t you dare throw away the life he gave you back.”

He pulls me to him, and I whimper slightly as the wound in my side protests. I can feel the blood seeping through the gauze that’s there. I’m broken. I’m so broken. “He loves her, Giles. I’m not her.”

“He loves you both,” Giles corrects softly, stroking my hair. “He needs time to mourn, Willow. He needs to come to grips with what happened, but he also needs for you to be safe. He needs you to be his anchor. You’re going to save him, in the end.”

I hear him, but his words aren’t making any sense to me. My brain is all jumbled, adrenaline and sorrow and pain all warring for prominence in my head. And I as I close my eyes, I can hear Xander’s voice in my ears, ‘Instead, now I just have Willow. And every time I look at her right now, all I see is that she’s not Anya.’

Just Willow. Not Anya.

My breath heaves raggedly, and I disentangle myself from Giles and spring to my feet before he can react. I need to get away. I need to get somewhere where I can breathe. I need to be alone. To think. To figure out how to fix this. I’m running before he’s even gotten the chance to stand. I listen for his telltale footfalls to see if he’s following me, but the road behind me is silent. The silence just spurs me to greater speed, and I know where I’m going instantly.

The houses and streets rush by. The only sound I hear is my breathing, interrupted every now and then by a sob that bursts forth from me with the gut-wrenching pain in my side.

I reach my destination, and bend slightly, trying to catch my breath. Trying to breathe. I count three flowerpots from the left, and stick my hand into the dirt of the third one, fishing for a key. I’m trembling so much that I knock the flowerpot from the railing and it smashes on the porch in front of me. ‘Even better’, I think, as I spot the key glinting through the soil spilled in front of me.

I let myself into the house, and collapse against the door as it closes behind me. My parents’ house. They’re in Greece right now second honeymoon. No one will find me here.

I stand on shaky feet and make my way to the stairs, and then up to my room. I know somewhere in my brain, that I’m instinctively seeking sanctuary. From everything on the other side of the front door. It’s too much to handle right now. The fact that I should have died twice is paling in comparison to what I think Xander’s going through. What, or who, I’m reminding him of every time he sees me.

I wish there was a spell to fix this. I trudge slowly up the stairs, examining the spell options in my mind. A time-reversing spell? A reanimation spell? A spell where I go back to yesterday and warn them? I sigh, knowing that I don’t have the power to cast something like that, even if I had a spellbook with the right spell. Giles has most of the spellbooks at his house now. Can’t go there. And Tara has the rest of them. She took them with her when she left. When she left because I spent all night, every night, whispering things about Xander in my sleep.

Stepping into my room, I’m comforted by the smell of it. It smells like vanilla and eucalyptus, with a pinch of the garlic that’s still in my drawer. It’s not necessarily a pleasant smell, but it means home to me. It means safety. No one will think to look for me here. Collapsing onto my old bed, I curl into a ball and let the tears overwhelm me. Xander won’t have to see me here. He won’t have to pick who he loves, and neither of us will be disappointed when he figures out too late that it’s not me.

Xander

I don't know how long I've been sitting here like this -- tears of grief and painful laughter streaking down my face. Finally, though the tears have stopped and it's just me, in the silence of Giles' apartment, with nothing but the ache in my chest and thoughts that I don't want to have.  
I don't want to me thinking about how much I've managed to hurt Willow-- again-- with a few small words. I don't want to be thinking about the look on Anya's face when she realized that she was going to die. I don't want to be thinking at all, as a matter of fact. I just want it to go away. I want everything to go away.

I want to go away from myself.

I shiver in the pleasant warmth of Giles' living room. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I've never actually felt like this before, like I have absolutely no direction in my life. It's a very lonely feeling.

I wish... I'm not sure what I wish. I wish that Anya hadn't died. I wish she had never had to come to Sunnydale, even though I'll never regret that I knew her. I wish that the choice I had to make hadn't been the one that I did. But no, it goes farther back than that.

I wish that I had seen Willow, really seen her, sooner than I finally did.

Anya's bright, sort of coy smile flashes before my eyes and I'm startled for a minute. The clarity of the memory is terrifying; with it comes her voice and smell and the softness of her skin and the way she kissed and laughed and was completely tactless sometimes. The way she was learning to be more human, partly because she wanted to be with me.

I would give up almost anything to give her barfy feelings again.

Almost anything. Not Willow.

Never Willow.

Maybe I've lost Willow now in a different way, inside, where we used to connect, and that hurts too. I didn't know I could ever feel like this. I had heard about it, when Buffy came back from that summer she was missing, and I had seem something almost as bad when Oz left Willow, but there was always a part of me that just didn't know.

I didn't know how real it was.

But wishes don't really come true. Ironically enough, Anya was the only one I'd ever heard of to be able to turn wishes into reality, and now she's gone. So I can't wish away the past couple of days, the past months and years and minutes and seconds. I can't make it right just because I wish that I could.

It's not too easy to breathe right now.

"Xander!"

I look up and see Giles, realizing that he'd been there for a few minutes. "Did you find her? Is she okay?"

He sighs and takes off his glasses, sitting down next to me. "I found her. She's... Hurting, Xander. Like all of us. She's confused and feels terribly and isn't sure what to do. Perhaps..."

"I can't see her right now, Giles," I hear myself say. "It's just too... Close. I can't..."

He rests his hand on my shoulder for a moment, his eyes serious and aged with wisdom. Or, at least what I hope is wisdom. I could really use some right now. "If you don't feel that you can see her right now, then don't. It wouldn't do either of you any good. Wait until you want to."

"But I *do* want to!" I say too loudly. "I want to hold her and make sure she's safe and tell her how important she is to me. I'm just not strong enough..." My voice seems to fade away, the last sentence barely a broken breath.

"I never tell you, Xander," Giles murmurs. "I never tell you things that I know I should say often. I never tell you that you're courageous. And you are. I never tell you that you're intelligent. And you are. I never tell you that you're strong. And you are one of the strongest people I've had the honor of knowing. So I apologize for never telling you any of these things when I should, and for never realizing how much you needed to hear them." He squeezes my shoulder.

More tears come and blur my vision. I can't seem to use my voice. Giles slowly puts his arms around me for the second time that day, rubbing my back. The father I always wanted. Blindly, I wrap my arms around him too, needing someone to hold on to, someone that I know is real and with me. Someone who cares.

I'm shaking, inside and out, and Giles speaks soothingly to calm me down. Murmuring that it will be okay, that someday it won't hurt as much, telling me that Anya loved me and no matter how confusing it all is, I loved her too. Assuring me that it's all right to cry and hugging me tighter when I realize what I'm doing and try to pull away.

His words blend together; some of them I hear and some of them I don't. The message is the same, I think. It hurts, way too much, but it won't forever. I want to believe that, believe him. I want to believe that someday I'll smile again. But, like I never understood this kind of pain before, I don't understand now the kind of relief that could come after the pain subsides.

But I want to. Oh, God. I wish I did. It hurts so badly, I don't know how much longer I can take it.

After a while, I don't know how long, I stop crying and just listen to the both of us breathe deeply. The shaking lessens and I don't feel so cold. Giles seems strong, so much stronger than I could ever be as he hugs me. He seems like he knows.... Like he knows everything about what I'm feeling and is telling me the truth when he says that it won't hurt forever.

And suddenly, I want to share that with Willow. I want to tell her that yes, maybe it's true. Maybe the pain will go away. I want to tell her everything that I've needed to say since this happened, and some things that I've needed to say for much longer.

I want to explain.

I pull out of Giles' arms and want to thank him, but I can't think of how to. But he nods like he knows, and I don't need to say it after all. So my words are sort of surprising after the silence, like a fish jumping out of the water of a still lake or something. "Where is she? Did she go home?"

He pauses. "Possibly. Yes, she most likely would."

There's a new cold inside of me now, a new fear. "What do you mean?"

His voice his heavy. "She needed to be alone. She didn't... Say where she was going. I only managed to speak with her for a few moments."

I nod and try to figure it out. If she wanted to be alone, really alone, she wouldn't go back to the dorms. Obviously not to my place. The image of her leaving Sunnydale suddenly scares me, but I shake it off, knowing as soon as the thought hits me where she went.

And then I can feel her, and I'm positive that I'm right. Maybe that connection that we had wasn't broken totally by what happened. I could be imagining it, but I always had a feeling whenever I thought of Willow—like a sixth sense about her. It comforts me some.

I stand and Giles does too, waiting for me to speak. "Thanks, Giles."

"Of course."

"I mean for..." How is it possible to thank someone as much as you feel it? "Everything, you know?"

He smiles gently. "I know."

"I'm gonna go see if I can..." I start for the door. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"All right."

And then I'm running, out of his apartment and down the street. My footfalls are heavy and loud, and so is my breathing. My heart is still hurting, but I'm going to let that go for a few minutes as I run. I'm choosing to forget.

I'm making that choice for this moment.

Later on, probably really soon, it'll hurt again. Maybe more. Maybe all of the hurt I'm pushing away right now will double up on itself and I'll scream with the pain of it. But if I think about that as I run, I won't get to her as fast as I want to. And I need to see her now. I don't know how I waited so long before going to her. Through everything else, she's always my best friend.

I hear myself whisper one word as I go down the streets of Sunnydale, in perfect timing with my footsteps, blending in with the sounds of the night.

"Willow.... Willow.... Willow...."

Willow

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have. I must have been sleeping, must have been dreaming. That’s the only way I can imagine that I’ve woken up from the nightmare. The nightmare where the people that I love are afraid to look at me without guilt, afraid to say anything for fear of upsetting me, afraid to look at me because I’m not who they want me to be.  
Or perhaps I haven’t gone to sleep at all.

I get off the bed, all wrinkled from my tossing and turning. My eyes burn, but I can’t tell if it’s from the fact that I’ve been crying so much or from lack of sleep. Anya’s dead.

Funny how little words can stick with you, phrases that you can’t get rid of no matter how hard you try. I have to focus on them though, because if I don’t, I’ll start thinking about all the other things that I can’t think about right now.

So I’ll think about Anya. How much I disliked her. How jealous I was from time to time that she and Xander were so happy. How much they meant to one another. How sick I got of hearing about their sex-life. How much I wished she’d just go away and get out of his life.

How much I wished I was her from time to time. How much I wished that I could just be in her shoes, be with Xander without guilt or fear or recrimination.

Because I’ll never have that now. Her shadow will always hang over our heads.

He let the woman he loved die because he felt he had to save me. And he wishes it had worked out differently. He wishes that he didn’t feel this obligation to our friendship, that he could have saved her life and let me fend for myself.

A sob I can’t control takes me over and I make my way back to the bed. I’ve cried so much. I haven’t cried this much since Oz left me. I bury my head in the pillow, giving myself over to the sobs that wrack my body. It hurts so badly. Hurts to know that I’m a burden to him, that it’s a sense of duty that keeps us bound together. Not love, not emotion. Duty. Honor.

I hear my bedroom door open and ignore it. Its most likely Buffy, called by Giles to find me, calm me, be with me. She’s been this hurt before, maybe more. She knows what it’s like to feel like your heart’s been taken from you without your permission. Taken and abused, stomped on, shredded. She knows what it’s like to love someone who hates who you are, what you do. Hates that you’re alive.

“Willow?”

His voice is soft as he lies beside me, stroking my hair with a shaky hand. He’s been running, his breath is still shaky from the exertion. I turn my face, still stained with tears, toward him, afraid to meet his eyes.

His fingers thread into my hair and he holds me there, staring at him without seeing. “It hurts, Will.”

I nod, knowing.

“Everything. Anya’s death, the fact that I couldn’t save her. That all hurts like hell, Willow.”

I nod again, refusing to focus, refusing to see. I can’t watch him hate me.

“But nothing hurts more than this. Seeing you like this.” He takes me into his arms and holds me, both of us rocking, both of us crying. My tears stain his shirt, his streak my hair. We’re lying together, holding one another, moving together, a mockery of lovemaking. But making up…maybe that is like making love.

I look up at him, my eyes red, my hair mussed, my nose running. And I see his eyes. And he’s still Xander. And for everything that’s happened, I’m still Willow. Best friends, no matter what.

It’s not enough. But it’s enough for now.

Xander

Five Months, 6 Days, and four hours later….  
“Xander, I need you to find Willow.”

I look up from the pizza I’m working on and switch my grip on the phone so I can use both hands. “Giles, I’m working. I do the lunch hour here, and then I have to go to work at the driving range.” That’s me. Three-job-Xander. But at least I have almost enough money to move out of the basement.

Giles sighs on his end, and I wait patiently for the inevitable guilt trip. “Xander, you know I wouldn’t normally ask when you’re working… But I have to cast this spell by tonight to ward off Nedra’s charm…” I let him ramble on, waiting for the end, when I will no doubt give in, but this is almost a game we play nowadays. Wait a sec. Nedra. A female vamp sorceress who cruised into town about two weeks ago. Very powerful, and thanks to Buffy, very dusted -- as of last night.

“Giles, Nedra is dead,” I point out. Sam, the guy who owns the pizza parlor glares at me disapprovingly, obviously not enjoying the fact that I’m talking about dead people while making food.

“Spike stopped by this morning with some information.”

“How much did it cost ya?” I interrupt.

“One hundred and fifty dollars. Plus a bottle of Drambuie I had in the liquor cabinet.” Giles sighs on his end of the line. “I was saving that. The point is, Nedra cast a charm, Xander. A charm that will send out a signal at nightfall to all vampires within two hundred miles of Sunnydale to come here to avenge her death.”

I let out a low whistle, trying to calculate how many vamps that could be, and then I realize that it includes all of LA. Even with a kick-butt-and-take-names-Slayer like Buffy, we’d get slaughtered. *So* not an option. I lower my voice so Sam can’t hear me. “So, we’re talking hundreds of vamps coming to town?”

“Thousands. With nothing but revenge against Buffy on their feeble little minds,” Giles confirms. “It’s a mind-control spell. The vampires won’t have any choice in the matter, and they won’t be released from the spell until Buffy’s dead.”

I gulp and grab the phone with flour-and-cheese-covered hands. “You’re sure?”

“I checked with the magic store downtown, and Nedra did buy all the necessary ingredients to cast such a charm...” Giles trails off. “I need to stay here and get the components together, but the book I have only has part of the actual spell. Willow should have my other book, with the full counter-spell. It’s the, um, oh blast! What was it called?” I can hear him shuffling papers around.

“Giles, I can go after work, but until then, I “

“That will be too late! Xander! Buffy’s life is at stake—“ He stops suddenly, and then changes tactics. “I’d like to order a pizza, please.”

My face breaks out in a grin and I let out a short laugh. The G-man can be very cunning when faced with a problem. “What do you want on it?”

“MY BOOK!” he thunders at me. “And deliver it to Willow Rosenberg, wherever she is right now!”

“You find the name of the book yet?”

“It’s called… Oh, it’s the Brighton Book of Counterspells.” He sounds as if he’s angry with himself for not remembering right away. Which he probably is.

I snicker. “Okay. We’ll be there soon.”

Sam glares at me as I hang up the phone. I grin at him innocently. “I’ve got a delivery.”

***  
To my credit, I’ve searched nearly everywhere. Willow’s dorm room, the cafeteria, the pub, the coffee shop, the few classrooms that I know she frequents, I even cruised by the magic shop. The pizza is long-cold and I still haven’t found Willow.

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to try the dorm again. I hurry up the steps to the room Willow shares with Buffy, and knock purposefully on the door. I’m about to swear when the door swings open.

Willow takes in the sight of me quickly, and then snatches the pizza box from my hands greedily. “Thanks!”

“It’s cold,” I inform her. “I’m not here for food anyway. It’s the bat-signal.”

“Oh.” She peeks curiously into the pizza box anyway, and then shoves it into the tiny fridge she shares with Buffy. “What’s going on?”

“Giles needs some book you borrowed.” I pause, trying to remember the name of the thing. “Brighty’s Counterspells.”

“The Brighton Book of Counterspells?” she clarifies. “It’s at my parents’ house.”

I’m sure the expression on my face doesn’t change one iota. “Of course it is.”

“I borrowed it a few weeks before…” She trails off and her eyes become shaded. I know what she’s talking about.

“Before Anya died,” I finish for her, softening it a little with a small smile.

She gives me a puzzled expression. “This is a big one, isn’t it?”

“Huge,” I agree, grabbing her jacket from the nearby chair and holding it out for her. She shrugs into it as I hold it out for her, and for just a second, my breath is caught as her hand brushes mine, slipping into the sleeve of the jacket. We don’t much touch anymore, Willow and I. We still talk up a storm, but touching is still on the verboten list. We hug and slap each other playfully and all that, but it’s still not enough for me. Sometime after Anya died, I began to feel that the only time I was safe, the only time I felt worthwhile, was when Willow touched me. It’s not really about Anya anymore. When I was with Anya, I did love her. But I still loved Willow too. I don’t want to think that I gave up someone for her, or that she owes me, because it goes beyond that. It’s like a part of me recognized that I need *her* and love *her* during that spilt-second choice, and now it’s just not willing to settle for anything less than everything. So that part of me is somewhat pissed that Willow and I are now firmly entrenched in best-friend territory. Although I think I’m over Anya now, as much as I ever will be, Willow and I aren’t moving past friendship. Don’t get me wrong I love being her best friend again, but that part of me that wants to be with Willow won’t shut up.

There’s moments when the urge to kiss her is amazingly strong. The urge to hold her, and take care of her, and kiss her until we can’t breathe. That’s the urge I grapple with a lot now. I suspect we both want to do that -- from the way I feel about her, and the way she glances at me when she thinks I’m not looking. But so far, we’ve been too cowardly to take the next step.

Other times, I still feel that it’s too soon. That Anya, wherever she is, is pitching a tremendous fit that I’m even thinking about Willow in a romantic way. Willow sometimes looks at me, and for just a second, I think she wants to say something, do something, and then she blushes and looks away. It’s almost like we’re still punishing ourselves for what happened the night I made my choice. The night Anya died. It’s like Anya is a shadow that hangs over us, reminding us that I let her die so Willow could live. There’s a lot of guilt with that. And although we’ve worked through most of it, there’s still some lingering in the deep, dark corners of our minds.

“Let’s go.” She smiles tightly at me, and that’s when I realize that I haven’t moved.

“Right. Going.”

***  
The drive to Willow’s house is quiet, and though I can’t speak for her, I’m thinking about the last time we were at her house together. It was the morning after. I’m okay with this, really. That morning was a beginning of sorts, and we’ve healed a lot since then.

We became friends again. It was slow going, and we were both really hurt, but the fact that we wanted to be friends so desperately helped. We’ve spent dozens of nights talking it out, examining what happened from every angle, discussing what we could have done differently. The only subject we avoid is why. Why I chose Willow over Anya. I haven’t been ready to face it head on, I don’t think, and neither has she.

I pull up to her driveway slowly, and sit there.

“You coming in?” she asks.

“I…. Do you need me to?”

She cocks her head to one side and stares at me for a second. She does this all the time. It’s like she’s reading my soul over the course of a few seconds. Like she’s going to find out all my secrets. Well, there’s only one secret she doesn’t know now, and still, I think she suspects that my feelings for her have changed again. She examines my eyes for a few moments, and then flashes me a sympathetic smile. “I’ll be fine,” she murmurs, opening the door. “It’s just a book.”

She thinks I didn’t catch that flash of sadness in her eyes before she turned away. The flash that says I still hurt over Anya, and I blame her for it. I don’t blame Willow for anything. And although I blamed myself for a long time, I’ve finally figured out that there was no *right* choice. There was just a choice. And I made it, and because Willow’s still in the world, I’m glad for it everyday. I turn off the car and hurry to catch up with her as she goes up the path. “I can help,” I explain as I fall into step with her. “It’s just a book.”

She smiles at me, some of the joy floods back into her eyes. We both know it isn’t about the damn book. It’s about facing the past we’ve left behind. Facing the morning after Anya died and after Willow almost got hit by a truck. Oh yeah. I know about that. She told me a couple of months ago during one of our marathon chats. She told me, and I felt guilty for hurting her so much that she closed off the world around her. More guilt-apalooza for me. That went on for a couple of really mopey days. But we made peace with that also. After I gave her a severe talking-to about watching where she’s walking from now on.

Willow lets us in and we jog up the stairs to her room. It all looks the same as it did before. Even the clean socks she left on the bed are still there. And it hits me. The world kept moving without Anya. So very few things stayed the same, and yet this room is exactly as we left it. The hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand up as I lean against the doorframe for support. I know I miss Anya. I know I still love Anya, but I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m over Anya. Being here, it hurts, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s like a little ache with Anya’s name on it that says, “It okay to be happy. Just don’t forget me.” She helped form who I am, and I’ll always carry a part of her with me, but she’s not a source of guilt anymore. It’s almost like a weight has been lifted. A weight I didn’t even know was there until this moment.

I breathe a small sigh, watching Willow’s lips move as she reads all the spines on books on her shelf. It strikes me how she’s the other person who helped me become who I am. She’s the person who’s seen me at my best and my worst, and who still wanted to be a part of my life. And have me in hers. She brings out the best in me, makes me be the person she expects me to be, without even realizing she’s influencing me. And I love her more than anyone else on the planet. In a million different ways. As a friend, as a soulmate, as something undefinable that makes me feel like she’s my other half. Willow’s the one I’ve fallen in love with time and time again, only to chicken out when it counts.

But I chose her when it really mattered. That’s gotta count for something, right?

She finally finds the book and pulls it from the shelf.

“Let’s go,” she says, stopping as she sees the look on my face. “What is it?”

“She’s gone,” I say simply.

Willow’s whole face transforms in an instant. She looks pained and sad for me, but the guilt that would have shadowed her look in the months before has faded to almost nothing. She understands now that I did what I felt I needed to do.

And I finally understand that I saved Willow because to me, she is my past, present, and future.

Willow steps forward and wraps her arms around me tightly. We haven’t hugged in a long time. Not for about a week, I don’t think. “I know she’s gone, Xand. I’m sorry.”

“No, Willow,” I pull back from her and smile at her even as my eyes begin to sparkle with tears. “She’s gone, it’s not okay, but it’s as close to okay as it’s ever gonna get.”

She looks at me with interest, and pulls away at length. “I’m … glad, for you.” I notice that her eyes are speculative, as if she’s wondering what I’m not telling her. As if she’s expecting me to say more.

I’m not ready to say more just yet. I can’t think of the words to express what I’m feeling, but that loud voice in me wants to kiss her, to show her where my heart’s headed. I lean in towards her, and wait for her to pull away. She doesn’t. She just watches me carefully with shaded eyes. Our lips are a hair’s breadth away when I remember the circumstances of being in her room.

I pull away slowly, never breaking eye contact with her deep green eyes. “ I think we’re forgetting that we’ve got a charm to break.”

“Right. This… can all wait until later, I guess.” She sounds disappointed. I know I am. But there’s promise in the air.

Sometimes, hope is the best feeling.

***  
On the way over to Giles’ place, I filled Willow in on the new problem. Her face became paler as I went on, and when I got to the end, I made sure I punctuated it with “But we’re gonna fix it, so don’t worry.”

She still bolted from the car once we got there, and I had to struggle to keep up. “Giles!” Willow calls as we step into his apartment. “We’re here!”

Giles’ face pops up in the window of his kitchen nook. He looks to verify that Willow has the book in her hands and then gets to the heart of the matter. “Where’s the pizza I ordered?”

I had no idea he actually wanted me to bring him a pizza. I think fast and seize the first plausible explanation that zings past my brain. “Willow ate it.”

“Hey!” She punches me lightly on the arm, but her eyes are sparkling with amusement “He didn’t tell me it was your pizza, Giles,” she explains. “And I didn’t eat any. It’s in the fridge at the dorm.”

Giles sniffs, put out, but not willing to spend any more time on the matter.

I take Willow’s jacket from her and drape it over Giles’ coat rack. It’s weird that we all have our unofficial assigned hooks on the rack. I like it though -- makes me feel like I’m part of a family. A family of demon-fighting, angst-ridden, world-saving heroes whose names will never be known, but that’s okay. That sort of makes it more special for me. I think I’m a little bent. Besides, we could so kick ass on Springer, should the occasion arise.

“Where’s Buffy?” Giles asks. He’s got a bunch of herbs and runes laid out on his dining room table, and as I move to his couch, I think I notice some bones there as well.

“You didn’t ask me to deliver Buffy, you asked for the book,” I reply. Then I gesture to the book in Willow’s hands, “Ta-da! With bonus spellcaster to boot.”

Giles rolls his eyes at me and looks to Willow, to see if she knows where Buffy is. Willow offers him a half-shrug. “She’s probably with Riley somewhere. Do you want me to call around?”

Giles nods, finally taking the book from her hands and flipping through it eagerly. “If you could please, Willow. I would like to know where she is, and advise her to stay low until we get this finished.”

Willow nods in agreement and grabs the telephone, sitting at the small desk in Giles’ living room. Giles busies himself with reading the spell, and doing a quick inventory of the components to make sure he has everything. Very thorough, our Giles.

“Do you want me to go get you a pizza?” I offer, leaning forward on the sofa. I’m eager to help, but so out of my territory with the magicky stuff. I know when to step back and let the experts take over.

Giles smiles at me. “No, Xander, that’s fine. I -- I could use your help in measuring out the mandrake’s root.” He’s been doing that a lot in the last few months, trying to reassure me and make me feel like I’m useful. I appreciate it, but this is magic something that doesn’t mix well with me.

I smile at him, holding up a hand in denial. “That’s okay. This spell is important. I don’t want to be involved. Too risky.”

He chuckles and pats me on the shoulder. “You did find Willow and the book. Good job, Xander.”

“All in a hard day’s work,” I nod, trying to brush it off. But Giles squeezes my shoulder just the same, letting me know that he means it. It makes me feel good. I’m lucky to have someone like Giles around. We all are.

***  
“She’s at her Mom’s,” Willow reports, putting down the phone after a few calls. “Riley’s there too. They’re … making jam.”

Is that a euphemism for something dirty?” I ask hopefully.

“No,” she replies, thoughtfully. “They’re really making jam. Mrs. Summers is teaching them.” She sounds puzzled by their activity, and I have to smile. It’s hard to picture Buffy and her soldier-boy elbow deep in something other than dust and demon goo.

Giles has his glasses dangling out of the side of his mouth, and he removes them and looks up at us. “Did you tell her what was going on?”

“Yup,” Willow confirms. “She’s gonna stay put until you call her and tell her it’s all fixed.”

Giles smiles, pleased that Willow was able to get such a promise out of Buffy so easily. I chuckle a little, knowing that Buffy would have given Giles at least fifteen minutes of grief over it.

“Do you need a second for the spell?” Willow asks, stepping over to Giles and glancing at the book over his shoulder.

“No, it’s quite simple really. The only problem is that when the charm is broken, a heavy rain will begin to fall. It’s a cleansing of sorts.” We all glance out his window at the perfect blue sky. “We’re going to get that poor new weatherman fired,” he notes sadly.

I laugh, finding the absurdity of it a riot. We’ve lost two weathermen on Sunnydale’s local station over the various spells that we’ve cast, and that the baddies have cast over the last few years. Hell, the first weatherman almost had a coronary that month when Willow was learning to summon the elements.

“You two should go, though,” he suggests softly. “I need to concentrate…”

Willow pats his arm fondly, “It’s okay Giles. You save Buffy, that’s what counts.”

I stand and clap Giles lightly on the shoulder as I move past. “You really just want me out of the magic radius, don’t you?”

He smiles and nods. “Oh, you saw right through me.” Giles is way better at sarcasm than he used to be after having me hang around all year. He finally waves us off, turning to the spell.

“We’ll be at the dorm, if you need us,” Willow chimes as she opens his door and steps outside.

“Later, G-Man,” I call, closing the door behind me before he has a chance to rebuke me for it.

***  
“Well,” Willow acknowledges, shaking her sopping wet coat. “I guess it worked.”

Before we’d even gotten to the parking lot for the dorm, the sky turned gray and opened up in a deluge. We’d made a run for the twenty-or-so yards to the door, but ended up soaked to the skin anyway.

“Yeah,” I agree, standing in one spot and trying not to drip too much. “Another weatherman bites the dust.”

“Do you have any clothes here?” she asks absently, already grabbing the duffel bag of extra clothes I have stored under her bed.

“Yup. They’re in your hands.” I take the bag from her, and make a motion for the door. “I’ll change in the men’s room.” She nods and I leave silently.

When I get back, she’s sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. She looks vulnerable, and for just a second, I wonder how to get us out of this mess that our near-kiss earlier has gotten us into. But then I sort of mentally shake my head. I don’t want to get out of it.

She cuts to the heart of it right away. “Xander, what happened at my house?”

“We …” I struggle, trying to think of how to frame this. How to tell her that I’m over Anya and want to spend every moment of the rest of my life with her.

“We fluked again?” she interrupts, taking my silence as a bad thing. “We tripped and almost kissed?”

She’s getting angry, and I find it all really amusing. Not that I can let her know that. She’d send one of her flying pencils into my brain. I let a half-smile out as I look at her. I see the way her wet hair falls, the green tint of her eyes, lit up with something between indignation and hurt. I see her lips, full and pink, complimenting the blush on her cheeks, which was fuelled by anger. And I see the most important thing. Her heart. How she feels. It’s written all over her face. It’s absolutely beautiful. She’s loving, and caring, and willing to step in front of a bus if it will keep someone she loves from harm. She’s kind, and funny, and strong, and soft, and vulnerable. And behind all that, I can see it. It’s weird, that I learned to not see it for so long, and now it’s all I can think of. She loves me. Sometimes she doesn’t want to, and right now, she’s trying to hide it, in case I don’t feel the same, but I can see it anyway.

Huh. All those glances I thought I saw did mean something after all.

I love her with every cell I’m made up of.

I sigh, knowing she’s waiting for me offer some sort of explanation. “Can we start over?” I ask.

She glances at me warily, wondering what angle I’m trying to work. “Okay,” she agrees slowly. She pauses, in a sort of mental regroup, and then takes a deep breath. Some of the color has fallen from her face as her anger diminishes. Damn, I thought it was cute. She smiles a little at me and starts again. “What happened at my house, Xander?”

“No, not like that,” I murmur, stepping closer to her bed. She starts, obviously both confused and ticked off with me, and her lower lip comes out in one of the smallest pouts I’ve ever seen. I can’t help it. I actually chuckle.

I stand in front of her, and offer her a broad smile. “Hi, I’m Alexander Lavelle Harris.” I stick out my hand and she politely shakes it, her eyes sparkling with mischief over this route I’ve taken. “My friends call me Xander.”

“Hi,” she breathes, still confused, but willing to play along. “Pleased to meet you, Xander. I’m Willow.”

I sink to my knees in front of her. “I know you’re Willow,” I murmur. She lets go of my hand and reaches up to lightly touch my hair, unwittingly giving me the courage to say what I need to say next. “I’ve loved you my whole life. I can’t even remember a time before you were with me, and every minute of that time, I’ve loved you.”

“Xander…” she breathes, her eyes softening as the smile on her lips reaches them.

I hold up a finger to silence her. I need to do this, and do it right. “I know I haven’t been the best friend I could have been. I know that I’ve hurt you…” I open my hands in front of her, not knowing how to express my regret. ‘… A whole lotta times. I know that you’re more than I deserve for a friend. I know you’ve been there when I needed you more than I have been there for you. And I know that because you’re who you are, you aren’t even mad at me, and you should be. So, I’m saying that I’m sorry for all that, and starting right now, it’s all different. That’s what I meant by starting over. I’m going to be the Xander I should have been from the beginning.”

She’s smiling at me, and her eyes are a little teary, and I take the next big step. “I know I haven’t loved you as well as I could have. I know that sometimes I was blind and sometimes I was mean, and I’m sorry for that too. But starting this second Will, I want to be the guy who gets to love you. I want to kiss you and hold you all night and be the guy you turn to when you’re upset or mad or happy. I want to be your guy. I’ve loved like that for a long time longer than I think I knew about, and I’m sure that’s what made me choose you that night. You’re my life, Wills, and I couldn’t lose you. Not then, and not now. Just tell me what I have to do.”

Her voice catches on a sob, and she wordlessly gathers me close to her in a tight hug. I wrap my arms around her, my heart thudding in my chest a mile a minute, and breathe in deeply. Nothing has ever felt so right as this.

We stay like that for a long while, tangled up in each other and breathing deeply. I’m afraid to say anything, for fear of wrecking the peace we’ve found.

“Xander?” she asks finally.

“Yeah?” I breathe, afraid that she’s going to do something like let go of me.

“This feels awfully good, doesn’t it?”

I laugh quietly. “It feels like heaven.”

“I’m going to pull back a little, so don’t panic or anything,” she says. I marvel at how well she can read me. How did she know that was my greatest fear right this second? She slowly slides back and our eyes meet. “Hi,” she says softly. Her eyes are a little red, from the few tears she must have shed, and I couldn’t blink right now if my life depended on it.

“Hi,” I answer, not sure what else I can say.

“So, this is what love can feel like, huh?” she asks.

“I guess so.”

She leans in close to me again. Her eyes are watching everything at once. She’s looking at my eyes, my lips, taking in all of me. I can feel her breath on my lips, and my heart begins to thud again, this time in a hopeful rhythm. “I think we’re wrong,” she murmurs quietly.

“How so?” It’s taking every ounce of will I have to not close the tiny gap between our lips.

“I think…” she pauses, and before I know it, she’s kissing me. All thought stops. It’s like I’m falling, and she’s holding on to me and I’m not afraid. My stomach is doing flip-flops, and as she parts her lips slightly, I pull her closer and tentatively taste her. God, this is so much better than what I remembered from those kisses in high school. Her tongue lightly caresses mine, and I can’t help the moan that escapes me. My hands are in her hair, the soft wetness of it from the rain driving me insane.

She pulls back a little, and I follow her, pulling her tighter before she can get very far. She giggles against my lips, and I answer with a low, throaty chuckle. Rationally, I know there’ll be more of this later. I just can’t get enough of it right now. I can’t get enough of her lips, or her taste, or the way her breasts are pressed tantalizingly against my chest. I never want this to stop.

But when she backs away a second time, I let her. Her eyes are sparkling, and she’s breathless. “I think,” she begins again. “That love can feel even better.”

“It can,” I assure her, reaching up and lightly stroking her cheek reverently. “You just have to be with the right person.”

She sighs and her head droops forward to rest on my shoulder. We sit like that for ten minutes, an hour, forever. I’ve lost track of reality.

She sits up and slides back from me, holding my hands and playing with my fingers absently. Her eyes meet mine almost shyly. “We mean it, this time, right?”

“I’ve never not meant it, Wills.” I grin at her, and lean in to drop a small kiss on her lips. “I love you.”

She smiles at me, and gives me everything she is with her words. “I know, Xand. I love you too.”


End file.
